UINavigationBar Hide back Button Text

Question

How can I hide the Back Button Text from an UINavigation Controller? I will only have the "<" and not "< Back"

you can not modify default text, instead try navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem to set custom back button — BaSha, May 25 '14 at 09:06
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1453519/how-to-hide-the-back-button-in-uinavigationcontroller — Ayaz, May 05 '15 at 09:58
See my answer below, if you want a global solution using an appearance proxy. — heyfrank, May 29 '20 at 13:59

rebello95 · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-23T14:21:09.310

123

In the interface builder, you can select the navigation item of the previous controller and change the Back Button string to what you'd like the back button to appear as. If you want it blank, for example, just put a space.

You can also change it with this line of code:

[self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem setTitle:@"Title here"];

Or in Swift:

self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem?.title = ""

edited Mar 23 '17 at 14:21

answered May 25 '14 at 09:10

rebello95

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Awesome tip, the one about setting an empty space on interface builder... :-D – Felipe Ferri Apr 06 '16 at 14:56
11

Interface builder and Swift programmatic routes did not work for me in XCode 8.3.2, Swift 3 – agrippa Aug 30 '17 at 04:55
You can check out my very [simple solution](https://stackoverflow.com/a/46153030/3308174) for hiding all back buttons through out the app. P.S.: Requires zero line of code of your own – Pratik Jamariya Sep 20 '17 at 18:44
3

If `Back Button` is already blank in IB, just add a space to get ride of `Back` and just show the arrow. – Tejas K Dec 08 '17 at 06:11
This will only set the title you specify if the `navigationItem` already has a non-nil `backBarButtonItem`. For completion's sake, you should be creating a custom button, as in the answers below, and assigning that. – royalmurder Mar 28 '18 at 13:35
Great tip, this is tricky since you don't see any difference when there's a space or not in Navigation Item's Back Button field. I had it working for one View Controller and couldn't find why it wasn't for another lol. – Marcos Reboucas Aug 01 '19 at 11:32
4

This method currently works only in interface builder. Setting this from code does not work, instead of setting only the title you need to set the whole backBarButtonItem like this: navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 10:17
backbar title is get property only – famfamfam Jun 26 '21 at 06:07

score 92 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 11 '19 at 18:37

92

You can implement UINavigationControllerDelegate like this:

Older Swift

func navigationController(navigationController: UINavigationController, willShowViewController viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
    let item = UIBarButtonItem(title: " ", style: .Plain, target: nil, action: nil)
    viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = item
}

Swift 4.x

class MyNavigationController: UINavigationController, UINavigationControllerDelegate {
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        self.delegate = self
    }

    func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        let item = UIBarButtonItem(title: " ", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
        viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = item
    }
}

backBarButtonItem is nil by default and it affects next pushed controller, so you just set it for all controllers

edited Mar 11 '19 at 18:37

Yassine ElBadaoui

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answered Jan 28 '16 at 16:09

VoidLess

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Thank you! This is the only solution that worked (without messing up anything else) after looking at 4 duplicate questions and dozens of answers. – inket Apr 28 '16 at 09:27
1

I already had a navigation controller subclass that I made into it's own delegate this worked perfectly. Should update for Swift 3 though. – Dean Kelly May 19 '17 at 16:19
Great solution thanks, the only one that worked consistently for me. – Elliott Davies Jan 25 '18 at 02:45
Woks like a charm. – tounaobun Jun 25 '19 at 10:09

Shahzin KS · Answer 3 · 2015-05-16T09:31:05.187

83

You could also do this through storyboard. In the attribute inspector of the navigation item of the previous controller you could set " " in the Back button field. Refer Image below. Replace "Your Title here" to " ". By doing this you will achieve the desired result. You don't need to mess with the 'Title' anymore.

Programmatically you could use

[self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem setTitle:@" "];

where self refers to the controller which pushes your desired View controller.

Xcode view controller navigation item

Sample Before, After Navigation bar

Before Before

After After

edited May 16 '15 at 09:31

answered May 16 '15 at 09:23

Shahzin KS

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This works perfectly if it's set in storyboards. Just make sure that the navigation bar has a navigation item in it so that it can be set. – Jul 29 '15 at 20:08
12

In iOS 9 / Xcode 7.3, setting the `backBarButtonItem` programmatically does not work, but setting it via the storyboard does. – Scott Gardner Mar 23 '16 at 11:31
@ScottGardner, setting `backBarButtonItem` programmatically [works for me](http://stackoverflow.com/a/37337255/3681880) in iOS 9. – Suragch May 20 '16 at 03:14
If you do not have navigation bar in your screen, maybe because it needs to be hidden, you can add navigation item in storyboard, to previous view controller and set its back button to " ". – Martin Berger Jul 02 '17 at 09:36
Solution worked great and very easy to implement in Xcode 9.2/iOS 11. – Ray Hunter Mar 06 '18 at 02:15
This method currently works only in interface builder. Setting this from code does not work, instead of setting only the title you need to set the whole backBarButtonItem like this: navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 10:18

score 56 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 18 '18 at 07:02

56

Setting title of the back button to @"" or nil won't work. You need to set the entire button empty (without a title or image):

Objective-C

[self.navigationItem setBackBarButtonItem:[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil]];

Swift

self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)

This should be done on the view controller that's on top of your view controller in navigation stack (i.e. from where you navigate to your VC via pushViewController method)

edited Sep 18 '18 at 07:02

Faysal Ahmed

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answered Jun 20 '16 at 18:04

jackal

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thank you, it works! In swift: self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .Plain, target: nil, action: nil) – mostworld77 Aug 17 '16 at 00:25
excellent answer.. correctly points out that merely changing the title of the default backBarButtonItem won't suffice. Bonus points for mentioning that the backBarButtonItem should be set in the previous view controller. – Crazed'n'Dazed Aug 21 '20 at 06:24
So this works but with iOS14's tap-and-hold back button, the little floating table view that comes up no longer shows titles of the view controllers ;( – zaitsman Jan 29 '21 at 04:17

score 32 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 06 '16 at 06:16

32

Add the following code in viewDidLoad or loadView

self.navigationController.navigationBar.topItem.title = @"";

I tested it in iPhone and iPad with iOS 9

answered Apr 06 '16 at 06:16

alones

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This didn't clear title of previous view controller? – CalZone Apr 25 '16 at 19:45
6

Don't use because it will remove the last screen title – evya Jul 08 '18 at 16:26
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If you need to do it from current view controller then to avoid removing the title from previous vc you should rather do: navigationController?.navigationBar.topItem?.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 09:53

score 31 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 30 '15 at 17:06

Another solution to this issue for situations where you have a great deal of view controllers is to use a UIAppearance proxy to effectively hide the back button title text like this:

UIBarButtonItem *navBarButtonAppearance = [UIBarButtonItem appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UINavigationBar class], nil];

[navBarButtonAppearance setTitleTextAttributes:@{
    NSFontAttributeName:            [UIFont systemFontOfSize:0.1],
    NSForegroundColorAttributeName: [UIColor clearColor] }
                                      forState:UIControlStateNormal];

This solution will render the text as a tiny clear dot, similar to manually setting the back button title to @" ", except that it affects all nav bar buttons.

I don't suggest this as a general solution to the issue because it impacts all navigation bar buttons. It flips the paradigm so that you choose when to show the button titles, rather than when to hide the titles.

To choose when to show the titles, either manually restore the title text attributes as needed, or create a specialized subclass of UIBarButtonItem that does the same (potentially with another UIAppearance proxy).

If you have an app where most of the back button titles need to be hidden, and only a few (or none) of the nav buttons are system buttons with titles, this might be for you!

(Note: the font size change is needed even though the text color is clear in order to ensure that long titles do not cause the center nav bar title to shift over)

Doesn't this also cover up an left bar button items that are not back buttons? — kevinl, Dec 01 '16 at 18:22
shouldn't it affect all other buttons in navigation bars including left/right bar button items? — Fyodor Volchyok, Jul 19 '18 at 08:12
This is not working in new iOS 13 beta. Any solution for fix? :( — bezoadam, Sep 02 '19 at 10:33

Display Name · Answer 7 · 2019-07-12T07:06:48.760

25

I tried some above and below but they didn't work. This worked for me:

override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
    super.viewWillAppear(animated)
    self.navigationController?.navigationBar.topItem?.title = ""
}

edited Jul 12 '19 at 07:06

answered Oct 19 '18 at 11:11

Display Name

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If you need to do it from current view controller then to avoid removing the title from previous vc you should rather do: navigationController?.navigationBar.topItem?.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 10:26

teradyl · Answer 8 · 2016-06-22T18:21:04.957

16

You can add this Objective-C category to make all "Back" buttons created by a navigation controller have no text. I just added it to my AppDelegate.m file.

@implementation UINavigationItem (Customization)

/**
 Removes text from all default back buttons so only the arrow or custom image shows up.
 */
-(UIBarButtonItem *)backBarButtonItem
{
    return [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil];
}

@end

PS - (I don't know how to make this extension work with Swift, it was having weird errors. Edits welcome to add a Swift version)

edited Jun 22 '16 at 18:21

answered Mar 21 '16 at 23:08

teradyl

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This give the title "Back" not hide the title – Raj Aggrawal Aug 12 '16 at 10:40
Really, how to `override` it in swift. Very interesting question – Andrey Gagan Jan 26 '17 at 09:54
@teradyl it is best answer. – aks.knit1108 Apr 21 '17 at 18:51
@Andrey Gagan, see my answer – Abirami Bala May 18 '17 at 08:46
This works on iOS 9.0 - 10.3.3, but on iOS 11+ does not work. – Sihad Begovic Jul 12 '18 at 07:51
You should not use a category/extension to override a method. This can easily break at any time in future. – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 10:23

score 13 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 12 '17 at 13:42

The only thing which works with no side-effects is to create a custom back button. As long as you don't provide a custom action, even the slide gesture works.

extension UIViewController {
func setupBackButton() {
    let customBackButton = UIBarButtonItem(title: " ", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
    navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = customBackButton
}}

Unfortunately, if you want all back buttons in the not to have any titles, you need to setup this custom back button in all your view controllers :/

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    setupBackButton()
}

It is very important you set a whitespace as the title and not the empty string.

score 10 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 02 '14 at 11:10

10

The current answer wasn't working. I wanted to remove the title entirely, yet the text "back" wasn't going away.

Go back to the previous view controller and set its title property:

self.title = @" ";

ONLY works when the previous View Controller does not have a title

answered Nov 02 '14 at 11:10

ChrisHaze

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@ZevEisenberg make sure the property is being set prior to being displayed in the View Controller's life cycle. Meaning set it in either the viewDidLoad or viewWillAppear methods. – ChrisHaze Mar 26 '15 at 07:37
1

also, be sure to include a **space** between the quotes. – ChrisHaze Mar 26 '15 at 07:38
1

It actually ended up working for me *without* spaces; just good old empty string: `@""`. – Zev Eisenberg Mar 26 '15 at 22:46
1

@ZevEisenberg, When I first came up with the solution it was earlier in Xcode 5. With a space was the only way it worked, which is why I included it in the sample code. The Xcode 6 update must have included it. Good to know - thx – ChrisHaze Apr 09 '15 at 07:55
I also used my approach, which is still working, and actually removed the standard back arrow too. – ChrisHaze Apr 09 '15 at 07:58

score 9 · Answer 11 · answered Feb 10 '17 at 11:00

9

to remove the Text from backbutton programmatically, used below Code this will work form xcode7 and above.

self.navigationController.navigationBar.topItem.title = @" ";

or

manualLy in storyboards, select the navigation bar on the view controller and put " " in back button text.

this will work. thanks

answered Feb 10 '17 at 11:00

Jyothi Babu Pakalz

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This one will remove navigationItem title too – Ilker Baltaci Mar 05 '18 at 10:03
I edited your answer to this : `self.navigationController?.navigationBar.topItem?.title = " "` in Xcode 9 and worked ! – MHSaffari May 28 '18 at 08:20
If you need to do it from current view controller then to avoid removing the title from previous vc you should rather do: navigationController?.navigationBar.topItem?.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil) – Leszek Szary Dec 14 '19 at 10:24

Angel G. Olloqui · Answer 12 · 2021-07-01T09:46:02.733

The problem with most solutions here is that setting an empty text on the back item does not work well with the new functionality for long press on back buttons. Instead of showing proper titles, it is just showing an empty list

Instead, you can use the new button display mode for iOS14 or rely on the new appearance APIs for iOS13 , to set the text to size 0. Note that some people are playing with the color (clear), that doesnt work well either because it uses the space and removes it from your titles. If the title is long enough, you will see it clipped

Resulting code:

public extension UINavigationBar {
    func fixAppearance() {
        if #available(iOS 14.0, *) {
            topItem?.backButtonDisplayMode = .minimal
        } else if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
            let newAppearance = standardAppearance.copy()
            newAppearance.backButtonAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = [
                .foregroundColor: UIColor.clear,
                .font: UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 0)
            ]
            standardAppearance = newAppearance
        } else {
            topItem?.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
        }
    }
}

Then you just need to call that method when view controllers are presented, so either you call it from a base class (on viewWillAppear for example) or you add some delegate to the navigation controller like in other answers of this post.

score 5 · Answer 13 · answered Jan 12 '18 at 07:28

Alternative way - use custom NavigationBar class.

class NavigationBar: UINavigationBar {

    var hideBackItem = true
    private let emptyTitle = ""

    override func layoutSubviews() {
        if let `topItem` = topItem,
            topItem.backBarButtonItem?.title != emptyTitle,
            hideBackItem {
            topItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: emptyTitle, style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
        }

        super.layoutSubviews()
    }

}

That is, this remove back titles whole project. Just set custom class for UINavigationController.

score 5 · Answer 14 · answered Aug 22 '18 at 18:40

5

A lot of answers already, here's my two cents on the subject. I found this approach really robust. You just need to put this in viewController before segue.

Swift 4:

override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
    navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
}

answered Aug 22 '18 at 18:40

Codetard

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Yes! Thanks you :) – Hews Oct 22 '18 at 06:52

score 5 · Answer 15 · edited May 25 '21 at 16:11

5

Swift 5

viewController.navigationItem.backButtonDisplayMode = .minimal

edited May 25 '21 at 16:11

jherran

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answered Mar 17 '21 at 11:21

elliot

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Available in iOS 14.0+ – Ben May 01 '21 at 20:05

score 4 · Answer 16 · answered May 31 '17 at 06:07

4

Set Title of the Previous VC to " " string with space. and title with the back button will be replaced with single space string.

Self.title = " "

On Back press again reset the title to original one in the viewWillAppear.

answered May 31 '17 at 06:07

Mohit Kumar

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score 4 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 23 '17 at 12:11

Use a custom NavigationController that overrides pushViewController

class NavigationController: UINavigationController {  
  override func pushViewController(_ viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
    viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem =
      UIBarButtonItem(title: "", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
    super.pushViewController(viewController, animated: animated)
  }
}

score 4 · Answer 18 · edited Sep 27 '19 at 07:34

4

If you're targeting iOS 13 and later you can use this new API to hide the back button title globally.

let backButtonAppearance = UIBarButtonItemAppearance()
backButtonAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = [.foregroundColor: UIColor.clear]

UINavigationBar.appearance().standardAppearance.backButtonAppearance = backButtonAppearance
UINavigationBar.appearance().compactAppearance.backButtonAppearance = backButtonAppearance
UINavigationBar.appearance().scrollEdgeAppearance.backButtonAppearance = backButtonAppearance

edited Sep 27 '19 at 07:34

Ashish

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answered Sep 12 '19 at 09:55

heyfrank

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This is not optimal. If a user taps the label with the clear text, the back action is still triggered. – David Apr 25 '20 at 12:27

score 3 · Answer 19 · answered Aug 22 '17 at 13:48

I tried everything in this post. The only working solution is @VoidLess's

Here is the same answer but more complete

class CustomNavigationController: UINavigationController {

    override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillAppear(animated)
        self.delegate = self
    }
}


// MARK:UINavigationControllerDelegate
extension CustomNavigationController {
    func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem(title: " ", style: .plain, target: nil, action: nil)
    }
}

score 3 · Answer 20 · edited Nov 21 '17 at 19:51

3

This is my resolution for iOS11, I change the appearance of UIBarButtonItem in applicationDidFinishLaunchingWithOptions :

UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setBackButtonTitlePositionAdjustment(UIOffsetMake(-100, 0), for:UIBarMetrics.default)

You can't change Y offset, because it will change the back bar button's position too in iOS11, but it's OK in iOS10 and below.

edited Nov 21 '17 at 19:51

Emre YILMAZ

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answered Sep 27 '17 at 22:13

VictorChee

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It works but during animation you can see previous title moving on left. It looks a little bit buggy. – Jonathan Jan 04 '18 at 13:10

score 3 · Answer 21 · edited Jan 26 '18 at 11:23

3

Swift 3.1 You can do this by implementing the delegate method of UINavigationController.

func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, 
                          willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {

    /** It'll hide the Title with back button only,
     ** we'll still get the back arrow image and default functionality.
     */
    let item = UIBarButtonItem(title: " ", style: .plain, target: nil, 
                               action: nil)
    viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = item
}

edited Jan 26 '18 at 11:23

deanWombourne

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answered Nov 06 '17 at 10:27

S.M.Moinuddin. Shuvo

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The best answer! – evya Jul 08 '18 at 17:15

score 2 · Answer 22 · answered Jul 20 '17 at 04:32

In Swift3,

If you set global setting

func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {

    // ..

    let BarButtonItemAppearance = UIBarButtonItem.appearance()
    BarButtonItemAppearance.setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.clear], for: .normal)
    BarButtonItemAppearance.setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName: UIColor.clear], for: .highlighted)


    // ...

}

Note that this will also change the color to transparent for all other bar buttons that you might have somewhere in your app, not only back buttons. — Leszek Szary, Dec 14 '19 at 10:28

score 2 · Answer 23 · answered Feb 22 '18 at 06:15

For those who want to hide back button title globally.

You can swizzle viewDidLoad of UIViewController like this.

+ (void)overrideBackButtonTitle {

    NSError *error;

    // I use `Aspects` for easier swizzling.

    [UIViewController aspect_hookSelector:@selector(viewDidLoad)
                              withOptions:AspectPositionBefore
                               usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo)
    {

        UIViewController *vc = (UIViewController *)aspectInfo.instance;

        // Check whether this class is my app's view controller or not.
        // We don't want to override this for Apple's view controllers,
        // or view controllers from external framework.

        NSString *className = NSStringFromClass([vc class]);
        Class class = [NSBundle.mainBundle classNamed:className];
        if (!class) {
           return;
        }

        UIBarButtonItem *backButton = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@" " style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil];
        vc.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = backButton;

    } error:&error];

    if (error) {
        NSLog(@"%s error: %@", __FUNCTION__, error.localizedDescription);
    }

}

Usage:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
    [[self class] overrideBackButtonTitle];
    return YES;
}

score 2 · Answer 24 · edited Jan 03 '22 at 12:13

if #available(iOS 13.0, *) {
            let appearance = UINavigationBarAppearance()
            appearance.backButtonAppearance.normal.titlePositionAdjustment = UIOffset.init(horizontal: -300.0, vertical: 0.0)
}else{
      let barButtonApperance = UIBarButtonItem.appearance()
barButtonApperance.setTitleTextAttributes([NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor:AppColor.PrimaryGray.value], for: UIControl.State.normal)

}

score 1 · Answer 25 · answered Mar 26 '18 at 12:44

1

I was struggling with this because I had a custom navigation controller. I was able to remove the back item text in all view controllers with this code in my custom navigation controller class override func viewDidLayoutSubviews() { self.navigationBar.backItem?.title = "" }

This removes all of the back item titles using this custom navigation controller.

answered Mar 26 '18 at 12:44

Amy.R

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Update for this: this works but there is an odd lag in loading that bothers me. I've now added this 'let BarButtonItemAppearance = UIBarButtonItem.appearance() BarButtonItemAppearance.setTitleTextAttributes([NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor: UIColor.clear], for: .normal)' in the App delegate didLaunchWithOptions, and it is working perfectly! – Amy.R Mar 26 '18 at 13:48

score 0 · Answer 26 · answered Sep 14 '17 at 11:44

In iOS 11, we found that setting UIBarButtonItem appearance's text font/color to a very small value or clear color will result other bar item to disappear (system does not honor the class of UIBarButton item anymore, it will convert it to a _UIModernBarButton). Also setting the offset of back text to offscreen will result flash during interactive pop.

So we swizzled addSubView:

+ (void)load {
    if (@available(iOS 11, *)) {
        [NSClassFromString(@"_UIBackButtonContainerView")     jr_swizzleMethod:@selector(addSubview:) withMethod:@selector(MyiOS11BackButtonNoTextTrick_addSubview:) error:nil];
    }
}

- (void)MyiOS11BackButtonNoTextTrick_addSubview:(UIView *)view {
    view.alpha = 0;
    if ([view isKindOfClass:[UIButton class]]) {
        UIButton *button = (id)view;
        [button setTitle:@" " forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    }
    [self MyiOS11BackButtonNoTextTrick_addSubview:view];
}

score 0 · Answer 27 · answered May 05 '18 at 10:58

-(void)setNavigationItems{
     UIBarButtonItem *leftBarButtonItem=[[UIBarButtonItem alloc]initWithTitle:@"**Your title here**" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered target:self action:@selector(backButtonClicked)];   
     self.navigationController.navigationBar.topItem.backBarButtonItem=leftBarButtonItem;
}
-(void)backButtonClicked{
    [self.navigationController popViewControllerAnimated:YES];
}

score 0 · Answer 28 · answered Jun 07 '19 at 04:03

The back text come from last View Controller's navigationItem.title，and navigationItem.title is automaticly set by self.title. So easy way to solve the problem is hook setTitle:，make sure navigationItem.title = @""

Put this code at AppDelegate.m will make it ok。

    [UIViewController aspect_hookSelector:@selector(setTitle:)
                              withOptions:AspectPositionAfter
                               usingBlock:^(id<AspectInfo> aspectInfo, NSString *title) {
        UIViewController *vc = aspectInfo.instance;
        vc.navigationItem.titleView = ({
            UILabel *titleLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectZero];
            titleLabel.font = [UIFont preferredFontForTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleHeadline];
            titleLabel.text = title;
            titleLabel;
        });
        vc.navigationItem.title = @"";
    } error:NULL];

More details at https://www.jianshu.com/p/071bc50f1475 （Simple Chinease）

score 0 · Answer 29 · answered Jul 02 '19 at 06:56

0

My solution: - XCode: 10.2.1 - Swift: 5

Parent viewcontroller:
- self.title = ""
Child viewcontroller:
- self.navigationItem.title = "Your title" // to set title for viewcontroller

answered Jul 02 '19 at 06:56

PhuocLuong

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Pakchoiandbacon · Answer 30 · 2020-07-16T20:15:57.907

XCode 11.5 Swift 5

A very simple - though perhaps a little hacky - way of doing programmatically this if you don't need the custom back button is to set the font size equal to zero in the view controller you're pushing onto the stack, calling something like this from viewDidLoad

private func setupNavBar() {
    let appearance = UINavigationBarAppearance()
    appearance.configureWithDefaultBackground()
    
    let backButtonAppearance = UIBarButtonItemAppearance()
    backButtonAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = [.font: UIFont(name: "Arial", size: 0)!]
    appearance.backButtonAppearance = backButtonAppearance

    navigationItem.standardAppearance = appearance
    navigationItem.scrollEdgeAppearance = appearance
    navigationItem.compactAppearance = appearance
}

score 0 · Answer 31 · answered Dec 10 '20 at 15:09

UINavigationControllerDelegate's navigationController(_, willShow:, animated:) method implementation did the trick for me.

Here goes the full view controller source code. if you want to apply this throughout the app, make all viewcontrollers to derive from BaseViewController.

class BaseViewController: UIViewController {
    // Controller Actions
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        navigationController?.delegate = self
    }

    override func viewWillAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewWillAppear(animated)
        updateNavigationBar()
    }
    
    //This is for custom back button image.
    func updateNavigationBar() {
        let imgBack = UIImage(named: "icon_back")
        self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorImage = imgBack
        self.navigationController?.navigationBar.backIndicatorTransitionMaskImage = imgBack
        self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem()
    }
}

extension BaseViewController: UINavigationControllerDelegate {
    //This is to remove the "Back" text from back button.
    func navigationController(_ navigationController: UINavigationController, willShow viewController: UIViewController, animated: Bool) {
        viewController.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = UIBarButtonItem()
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 32 · answered Oct 26 '21 at 17:47

In iOS 15, I could only get the back button text to disappear using the bar appearance API. It seems like overkill, but I've ended up reusing this all over an app. Here's an extension with a bunch of other useful pieces to customize a nav bar. Setting backButtonTextColor to .clear does the trick for this particular issue.

extension UIViewController {
    @objc func setNavBarAppearance(with backgroundColor: UIColor,
                                   titleColor: UIColor? = nil,
                                   shadowColor: UIColor? = nil,
                                   tintColor: UIColor? = nil,
                                   backButtonTextColor: UIColor? = nil) {
        let appearance = UINavigationBarAppearance()
        appearance.configureWithOpaqueBackground()
        appearance.backgroundColor = backgroundColor
    
        if let titleColor = titleColor {
            appearance.titleTextAttributes = [.foregroundColor: titleColor]
        }

        if let shadowColor = shadowColor {
            appearance.shadowColor = shadowColor
        }

        if let tintColor = tintColor {
            navigationController?.navigationBar.tintColor = tintColor
        }
    
        if let backButtonTextColor = backButtonTextColor {
            let backButtonAppearance = UIBarButtonItemAppearance()
            backButtonAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = [.foregroundColor: backButtonTextColor]
            appearance.backButtonAppearance = backButtonAppearance
        }

        navigationController?.navigationBar.standardAppearance = appearance
        navigationController?.navigationBar.scrollEdgeAppearance = appearance
    }
}

Call it in your view controller's viewDidLoad like:

setNavBarAppearance(with: .systemBackground, backButtonTextColor: .clear)

score -1 · Answer 33 · answered Feb 15 '18 at 07:04

Finally found perfect solution to hide default back text in whole app.

Just add one transparent Image and add following code in your AppDelegate.

UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setBackButtonBackgroundImage(#imageLiteral(resourceName: "transparent"), for: .normal, barMetrics: .default)

Patrick · Answer 34 · 2018-03-15T02:38:18.517

-2

The following method works on iOS 11 and is safe to not crash on other iOS versions. Doing this may get your app rejected in App Store review since both UIModernBarButton and UIBackButtonContainerView are private APIs. Place in AppDelegate.

    if
        let UIModernBarButton = NSClassFromString("_UIModernBarButton") as? UIButton.Type,
        let UIBackButtonContainerView = NSClassFromString("_UIBackButtonContainerView") as? UIView.Type {

        let backButton = UIModernBarButton.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [UIBackButtonContainerView.self])
        backButton.setTitleColor(.clear, for: .normal)
    }

edited Mar 15 '18 at 02:38

answered Mar 14 '18 at 00:09

Patrick

2,035
17
27

Doing this may get your app rejected in App Store review since both UIModernBarButton and UIBackButtonContainerView are private APIs. – Groot Mar 14 '18 at 11:00
Thanks @Groot, added your warning. – Patrick Mar 15 '18 at 02:38

score -5 · Answer 35 · edited Oct 26 '16 at 21:01

-5

This is from my xamarin.forms code, the class derives from NavigationRenderer

NavigationBar.Items.FirstOrDefault().BackBarButtonItem = new UIBarButtonItem( "", UIBarButtonItemStyle.Plain, null);

edited Oct 26 '16 at 21:01

jmattheis

10,494
11
46
58

answered Oct 26 '16 at 20:48

Pinkladyla

24
2

score -6 · Answer 36 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 02:49

-6

Swift version, works perfectly globally:

 func application(application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [NSObject: AnyObject]?) -> Bool {

        UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.clearColor()], forState: UIControlState.Normal)
        UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName:UIColor.clearColor()], forState: UIControlState.Highlighted)

        return true
    }

answered Mar 31 '16 at 02:49

PeiweiChen

413
5
16

7

You should add, that this will hide **all** text also rightBarButtons and leftBarButtons, which do not go back. – limfinity Apr 27 '16 at 10:16
this is not a `solution`. As @limfinity pointed, it will change it universally for all the UIBarButtonItem's throughout the app – Dani Pralea Oct 07 '16 at 17:26
i agree with @limfinity and Danut Pralea, it'll hide all the UIBarButtonItem's text throughout the app – Pratik Jamariya May 08 '17 at 07:34

UINavigationBar Hide back Button Text

36 Answers36

Older Swift

Swift 4.x

Objective-C

Swift

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